Women, Religion, and Space in China: Islamic Mosques Daoist Temples, Catho [Paperback]

What enables women to hold firm in their beliefs in the face of long years of hostile persecution by the Communist party/state? How do women withstand daily discrimination and prolonged hardship under a Communist regime which held rejection of religious beliefs and practices as a patriotic duty? Through the use of archival and ethnographic sources and of rich life testimonies, this book provides a rare glimpse into how women came to find solace and happiness in the flourishing, female-dominated traditions of local Islamic womens mosques, Daoist nunneries and Catholic convents in China. These women passionately  often against unimaginable odds  defended sites of prayer, education and congregation as their spiritual home and their promise of heaven, but also as their rightful claim to equal entitlements with men.

1. Women, Religion and Space During Times of Chinas Political Transformation  Part 1: Late Imperial and Republican China: History, Religion and Space - Daoist and Muslim Women in Kaifeng  2. Religious Pluralism and The Place of Kaifeng in Womens History  3. Women-Led Religious Spaces and Modern Times  4. The Jiuku Miao in Kaifeng: Diverse Memories of a Womens Daoist Temple  5. Investing Muslim Womens Traditions with Modern Meaning  Part 2: Republican China Modernization, Religion and Space  Catholic Women in Kaifeng  6. Contesting Female Space in Changing Times: The Catholic Providence Sisters and Chinese Catechists  7. Catholic Virgins and the Growth of Local Spaces for Women  8. The Tradition of Catholic Shouzhen Guniang in Jingang  9. A Political Campaign to Re-map Gendered Space, 1949-1958  Part 3: Communist China, and Beyond Women, ReligiolCn